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XY. Polacantlius Foxii, a large unclescribed Dinosaur from the Wealden Formation 
in the Isle of Wight. 
By J. W. Hulke, F.R.S. 
Received January 3,—Read January 27, 1881. 
[Plates 70-76.] 
For the opportunity of studying the remains described in this note I am indebted to 
the courtesy of the Rev. W. Fox, of Brixton, Isle of Wight, who last autumn gave 
me free access to his rich collection of fossils obtained in that locality. 
Much shattered by being very hastily dug out, and since much damaged by the 
accidental breakages and the dissociations scarcely avoidable in the absence of a 
suitable place for their safe-keeping, there is risk of these remains becoming before 
long lost to the palaeontologist. In view of this not improbable eventuality I venture 
to offer to the Royal Society these notes, in writing which I have been reminded that 
it was to this Society the late Dr. G. A. Mantell, now more than fifty years since, 
communicated his first discoveries of Iguanodont and Hylaeosaurian remains. 
The remains of Polacantlius were found by Mr. Fox in 1865 in a bed of blue shaly 
clay, which occurs near the middle of the cliff, a short distance east of Barne’s Chine. 
The bed is easily recognisable by the large quantities of lignite which it contains. 
Professor R. Owen, to whom Mr. Fox showed some of these fossils soon after their 
discovery, suggested for the animal indicated by them the name Polacantlius —many- 
spined— P. Foxii, and this name Mr. Fox adopted in an account of his discovery read 
by him at the next meeting of the British Association. A brief notice of the discovery 
with a rude woodcut also appeared about the same time in the “ Illustrated London 
News.” Both these communications have only the value of preliminary notices by 
persons without anatomical training, and no description of the fossils sufficient for the 
use of palaeontologists has yet appeared. 
Mr. Fox’s MS., read at the meeting of the British Association, cannot now be found, 
and his paper does not appear in the “ Reports.” An abstract which I made of it in 
1869 gives the following list of the parts he believed he had secured. 
“ Sacrum and pelvis ; 7 lumbar, 7 anterior dorsal vertebrae with their ribs; 20 
caudal vertebrae; 2 femora; 1 tibia with fibula; 3 metatarsals, phalanges, and 3 
unguals ; 20 to 30 large dermal spines, and as many scutes.” 
The scattered remains which last autumn I succeeded in bringing: together again do 
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